The present invention relates in general to utility knives, and in particular to a new and useful cutter for cutting floor coverings. The cutter comprises a shell handle consisting of several parts and a cutting blade that is gripped with its cutting head at an angle of deployment to the longitudinal axis of the shell handle between the parts thereof. The parts can be joined by a screw and enclose an inner storage area for spare blades and are contoured on the outside into a grip shape.
Floor covering or carpet cutters with a shell handle in two halves, with the two halves joinable together by one or two screws are known, where the screw heads are countersunk and have a slot to accommodate a screwdriver, a coin or the like, in order to separate the shell parts to change the cutting blades and then to join them back together. The cutting blade, which must be changed relatively frequently, sits in a mounting structure at one end of the shell handle and is gripped between the two parts of the shell. Projections on the inside of the shell parts engage recesses in the cutting blade and insure that the blade is held tightly and securely in the shell handle. In prior art floor covering cutters, the cutting blade projects out of the shell handle as an approximately straight extension (British Pat. No. 1,020,485), or is deployed at an angle of approximately 45.degree. with respect to the longitudinal axis of the shell handle (U.S. Pat. No. 3,965,575). The shell handle is subjected to considerable force and is therefore frequently made of injection molded aluminum or a comparably strong material. Known shell handles are usually flat in cross-section and have only an approximation of hand grip contours, which on the non-blade end taper keel-like to one sided nose curve (British Pat. No. 1,020,485). The flattened contour of the grip formation of the shell handle has the practical advantage that there is room inside the shell handle for a storage space for spare blades, which lie inside it in a stack, but has the disadvantage that when great force is applied, the user feels mildly painful points of press in his hand. Also known from the above-mentioned literature, however, are handles for such floor covering cutters that are round in cross-section but of only one piece. Then, however, there is no storage space for spare blades and the disadvantage is incurred that the cutter is harder to guide with the hand.